[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The GreatViews expressed here are not necessarily the views & opinions of ActivistChat.com. Comments are unmoderated. Abusive remarks may be deleted. ActivistChat.com retains the rights to all content/IP info in in this forum and may re-post content elsewhere.

Cyrus The Great the greatest liberator of all time throughout human history. What distinguishes Cyrus from all the other great conquerors is that he was the first and only monarch in history to use his great power to improve the human condition rather than exploit it; and for that he was loved by both friend and foe. Cyrus the Great defined The First Charter of the Rights of Nations and The First Declaration of Human Rights about 438 BC and according to Prof. Richard Frye from Harvard University “surely the concept of One World, .... the fusion of peoples and cultures in one 'Oecumen' was one of their important legacies”.

The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties
Since 1978, Freedom House has published Freedom in the World, an annual comparative assessment of the state of political rights and civil liberties in 192 countries and 14 related and disputed territories. Widely used by policy-makers, journalists, and scholars, the 800-page survey is the definitive report on freedom around the globe. Click here to access 2005 country reports.

Freedom House, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization, is a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world. Through a vast array of international programs and publications, Freedom House is working to advance the remarkable worldwide expansion of political and economic freedom. [More]

Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) was a Soviet physicist who became, in the words of the Nobel Peace Committee, a spokesman for the conscience of mankind. He was fascinated by fundamental physics and cosmology, but he had to spent two decades designing nuclear weapons. The acknowledged father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, he contributed perhaps more than anyone else to the military might of the USSR. But it was his top secret experience as a leading nuclear expert that was instrumental in making Sakharov one of the most courageous critics of the Soviet regime, a human rights activist and the first Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He helped bring down one of history’s most powerful dictatorships. This exhibit tells about Sakharov’s extraordinary life.

The connection Sakharov saw between the violation of human rights and international violence has become increasingly recognized. Scholars find that nations with broad and solid political rights (that is, democracies) have rarely if ever warred on one another. But repression at home often leads to conflict abroad. See this essay (S. Weart) and this Democratic Peace site (R.J. Rummel).

In Moscow Sakharov combined at FIAN on pure theoretical physics with increasing contacts with the emerging human rights movement. In 1970 Sakharov, with Soviet dissidents Valery Chalidze and Andrei Tverdokhlebov, founded the Moscow Human Rights Committee. In the movement he met Elena Bonner, who became his partner and companion-in-arms; they married in 1971. She gave him a sense of personal happiness and greatly enhanced his contact with other people. Together they worked on articles, interviews, appeals, and demonstrations in defense of victims of political persecution and discrimination.
s Sakharov’s public stature and international support grew, the regime put increasing pressure on him. Open letters were published denouncing Sakharov, some signed by members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Newspapers also published phony letters “from simple people” attacking him. The 1973 newspaper campaign targeted both Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn – two parts of the same headache for the Soviet Politburo. Sakharov strongly disagreed with Solzenitsyn’s vision of Russian national resurrection, but he always deeply respected the fearless voice of the author of The Gulag Archipelago. It was Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize laureate for literature of 1970, who in 1973 nominated Sakharov for the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Only a few individuals in the Soviet Union dared to defend “traitors” like Sakharov. In September 1973, writer Lydia Chukovskaya wrote and circulated a remarkable article, “The People’s Wrath,” which explained that Sakharov’s ideas had been distorted in the Soviet press. She noted, “He wrote several large essays known throughout the world, except to you, comrade Soviet people; essays in which he invited the people of the globe to stop stockpiling bombs and start stockpiling thoughts: how can humanity be saved from the threat of war?” In January 1974 Chukovskaya was expelled from the Soviet Writers Union, primarily because of her articles in defense of Sakharov.

Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, the first Russian to get this honor. The Nobel Committee’s official citation praised Sakharov for his “fearless personal commitment in upholding the fundamental principles for peace... Uncompromisingly and with unflagging strength Sakharov has fought against the abuse of power and all forms of violation of human dignity, and he has fought no less courageously for the idea of government based on the rule of law.”

“In a convincing manner Sakharov has emphasized that Man’s inviolable rights provide the only safe foundation for genuine and enduring international cooperation.”

- Nobel Prize citation, 1975

Bonner at the Nobel Peace Prize
ceremony, Oslo, December 10, 1975 Soviet authorities did not allow Sakharov to travel abroad to receive the prize. His wife, Elena Bonner, who was then abroad, participated in the award ceremony in Oslo. On the day of the Nobel ceremony, Sakharov was in Vilnius attending the trial of Sergei Kovalev, a human rights activist.

Sakharov with a group of Soviet human rights activists, Vilnius, December 10, 1975

Sakharov continued to develop his ideas on science and society. Among his prophetic suggestions was the idea – published in a futurological article in 1974 – of a publicly available global information system. This was 18 years before the World Wide Web’s first appearance.

“I foresee a universal information system [which] will give each person maximum freedom of choice...”

Sakharov in a Moscow street, 1989

“I foresee a universal information system (UIS), which will give everyone access at any given moment to the contents of any book that has ever been published or any magazine or any fact. The UIS will have individual miniature-computer terminals, central control points for the flood of information, and communication channels incorporating thousands of artificial communications from satellites, cables, and laser lines. Even the partial realization of the UIS will profoundly affect every person, his leisure activities, and his intellectual and artistic development. Unlike television...the UIS will give each person maximum freedom of choice and will require individual activity. But the true historic role of the UIS will be to break down the barriers to the exchange of information among countries and people.” (Saturday Review/ World, 24 August 1974.)
Sakharov’s thoughts on the problems and goals of social development combined with his ever more active involvement in the human rights movement and led him to put forward the principle of human rights as a new basis of international and ecological politics. He became his country’s foremost defender of human rights.

“It’s very important to defend those who suffer because of their nonviolent struggle for an open society, for justice, for other people whose rights are violated. It is our duty and yours to fight for them. I think that a lot depends on this struggle -- trust between peoples, confidence in lofty promises, and, in the final analysis, international security.”
- letter to US President Jimmy Carter 20 January 1977

The connection Sakharov saw between the violation of human rights and international violence has become increasingly recognized. Scholars find that nations with broad and solid political rights (that is, democracies) have rarely if ever warred on one another. But repression at home often leads to conflict abroad. See this essay (S. Weart) and this Democratic Peace site (R.J. Rummel).

Sakharov in Gorky (now renamed Nizhniy Novgorod), on the balcony of his apartment Exile in Gorky 1980-1986

Sakharov at a pro-democracy rally

Sakharov addressing the Congress of Peoples’ Deputies, 1989. Sakharov in his last year

A physicist to the core, Sakharov was not born a humanitarian politician. According to his colleague Vitaly Ginzburg, Sakharov “was made of the material of which the greatest physicists are made.” Igor Tamm once remarked that his student “concentrates all his intellectual efforts on physics.”
The experience of building the most terrible of weapons transformed Sakharov’s life. The advent of nuclear energy meanwhile pressed all physicists to become more aware of the politics related to their physics. For Sakharov the weapons were a new empirical fact that he was required to meditate upon. Having done this thoroughly, he faced an old dilemma: “If not me, then who?” This led him to transcend the boundaries of physics as a science. In his research work, following his intuition as a physicist, Sakharov had broken through the limits of accepted knowledge on several occasions – in 1948 when he suggested a new principle for a thermonuclear device, in 1950 when he proposed the idea of the Tokamak thermonuclear reactor, and in 1967 when he suggested an explanation for the mysterious asymmetry of matter in the Universe. The same intuition guided him in writing his 1968 “Reflections,” which broke through the limits of the accepted political conventions of the Cold War.

Throughout his life, Sakharov remained convinced that his work on nuclear weapons was a necessity for his own country as well as for the entire world. “In 1948,” he recalled in his Memoirs, “no one asked whether or not I wanted to take part in such work. I had no real choice in the matter, but the concentration, the total absorption, and the energy that I brought to the task were my own. Now that so many years have passed, I would like to explain my dedication – not least to myself. One reason for it (though not the main one) was the opportunity to do superb physics. . . . The thermonuclear reaction – this mysterious source of the energy of the stars and the sun, the source of life on Earth and the possible cause of its destruction – was already within my grasp, taking shape right on my desk! I feel confident in saying that infatuation with a spectacular new physics was not my primary motivation; I could easily have found another problem in theoretical physics to keep me amused. Most important for me and also, I think, for Igor Tamm and the others in the group was the inner certainty that this work was indispensable.”

“I very quickly banished Stalin from that world.
. . . But state, country, and Communist ideals remained. It took me years to understand and feel how much speculation, deceit, and lack of correspondence with reality there was in those concepts”

At this time Sakharov believed in the official Soviet ideology, and he mourned Stalin’s death in 1953: “I already knew a great deal about the horrible crimes – the arrests of innocent people, the torture, starvation and violence. I couldn’t help but think of the guilty with indignation and disgust. Of course, there was a lot I didn’t know and I didn’t put it all together in one picture. Somewhere at the back of my mind was the idea induced by propaganda that brutalities are inevitable during major historic upheavals. As the saying goes, “When you cut wood, chips fly”. . . . On the whole, I see that I was more impressionable than I would like to be.
“But what was primary to me was my feeling of commitment to the same goal I assumed was Stalin’s – building up the nation’s strength to ensure peace after a devastating war. Precisely because I had already given so much to this cause and accomplished so much, I was unwittingly – probably like any one else would in the situation – creating an illusory world to justify myself.
I very quickly banished Stalin from that world. But state, country, and Communist ideals remained. It took years for me to understand and feel how much speculation, deceit, and lack of correspondence with reality there was in those concepts. At first I thought, despite everything that I saw with my own eyes, that the Soviet state was a breakthrough into the future, a kind of prototype, albeit a still imperfect one for all countries (such is the power of mass ideology). Then I came to view our state on equal terms with the rest: that is to say, they all have flaws – bureaucracy, social inequality, secret police, crime and reciprocally harsh courts, police and jailers, armies and military strategies, espionage and counter espionage, the desire to expand their sphere of influence under the guise of guaranteeing security, and a distrust of the actions and intentions of other states. That could be called the theory of symmetry: all governments and regimes to a first approximation are bad, all peoples are oppressed, and all are threatened by common dangers.”

“I later came to regard our country as one much like any other” Sakharov recalled. But “Then, during my activist period, I came to realize that the symmetry theory needed refinement. We cannot speak about symmetry between a cancer cell and a normal one. Yet our state is similar to a cancer cell – with its messianism and expansionism, its totalitarian suppression of dissent, the authoritarian structure of power, with a total absence of public control in the most important decisions in domestic and foreign policy, a closed society that does not inform its citizens of anything substantial, closed to the outside world...the theory of symmetry does contain a measure (a large one) of truth. The truth is never simple…”

“I hope that no one will claim to know the final answers; no good comes from prophets. Without giving a final answer, we must still constantly think about it and advise others as our minds and conscience prompt. God is your judge, as our grandparents would have said.”

Unlike his American colleague Robert Oppenheimer, Sakharov did not feel physicists had “learned sin” by working on nuclear weapons. Nor was he like Edward Teller, proud to have persuaded political leaders of the necessity of building the hydrogen bomb (Soviet leaders did not need any persuasion). But Sakharov did see some similarities with both American physicists. After Oppenheimer was shunned by the U.S. government as a security risk, Sakharov felt deeply for his colleague and noted “striking parallels between his fate and mine.” However, “in the 1940s and 1950s my position was much closer to Teller’s, practically a mirror image (one only had to substitute USSR for USA, peace and national security for defense against the communist menace, etc.). . . . Unlike Teller, I did not have to go against the current in those years, nor was I threatened with ostracism by my colleagues.”

Sakharov asked himself, “Have Soviet and American atomic scientists helped to keep the peace? After more than forty years, we have had no third world war, and the balance of nuclear terror... may have helped to prevent one. But I am not at all sure of this; back then, in those long-gone years, the question didn’t even arise. What most troubles me now is the instability of the balance, the extreme peril of the current situation, the appalling waste of the arms race... Each of us has a responsibility to think about this in global terms, with tolerance, trust, and candor, free from ideological dogmatism, parochial interests, or national egotism.”
akharov’s freedom of thought was demonstrated not in his political thinking alone, but also in his world view and a prediction he formulated several months before his death – an idea which, as was often the case, was not shared by the majority of his colleagues: “Einstein became, and it was no accident, the embodiment of the spirit of the new physics and the new attitude of physics toward society. In Einstein’s statements and letters you often find this parallel: God and Nature. This reflects his thinking and the thinking of very many people in science. In the Renaissance, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it seemed that religious thought and scientific thought contradicted each other, mutually exclusive . . . . But I believe that it has a profound synthetic resolution in the next stage of the development of human consciousness. ”

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BIG NO To Any Iran's Nuclear Program Under Illegitimate Islamist Regime Control (It is dangerous, expensive, against Iran's National Interest, Not Needed by FREE Iran, only Mad Mullahs needs atomic bomb to stay in power and take 70 million Iranian people and the world as their hostage)

The connection Sakharov saw between the violation of human rights and international violence has become increasingly recognized. Scholars find that nations with broad and solid political rights (that is, democracies) have rarely if ever warred on one another. But repression at home often leads to conflict abroad.

The dicussion that EU3 and G8 has started with illegitimate Islamist regime over 2 years ago regarding nuclear energy is not valid, and WRONG. This illegitimate Islamist terrorist regime should have been removed from power long time ago. The Neo-Colonialist EU3 created legitimacy for terror masters by talking to the regime which has taken 70 million Iranian people as their hostage. This is another mess created by EU3 and UN.

Iranian Scientists should learn from Andrei Sakharov human rights struggle and they should not help Islamist regime for building Nuclear Bomb. Building Nuclear Bomb and using nuclear energy are against Iranian National Interest while Islamist regime is in power. The illegitimate unpopular Islamist regime is after creating new major crisis to survive.

Iranian people need freedom, free society, secular democracy, jobs and NOT nuclear bomb. Iranian people should not be deceived by Islamist terrorist regime with hidden agenda. Due to the fact that the Islamist regime can not create jobs and deliver freedom, free society and secular democracy therefore the regime is creating new crisis to survive. The Islamist regime past 26 years actions is the best example of anti Iranian nature of this regime and the Iranian people have already spoken by boycotting the Islamist elections. now the Iranian Armed forces and security forces must choose between defending freedom, serving the people, and FREE Iran or serving Evil Mullahs and destruction of Iran.
Due to the fact that the armed forces and security forces are paid by the Iranian people therefore they must serve the people interest and must support FREE Iran against ruling class evil Mullahs at any cost without any hesitation.
Iranian people can decide about Nuclear Engery and Atomic Bomb after the regime change when they have established secular democracy and Free society untill then we should talk about how to change Islamist regime ASAP and nothing else.

Shame On UN
Shame On Any Country that sign contracts with Islamist Regime.
Shame on any leader who handshake with Islamist Terror Masters

NEVER FORGET Handshakes Of Shame With Terror Master

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UNITED NATIONS - In a veiled reference to Russia, the United States on Monday urged governments to end nuclear projects with Iran in light of a recent finding that Tehran is not complying with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Stephen G. Rademaker, assistant secretary of state for arms control, told a U.N. committee that nations must adjust national policies as a result of an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution last month that found Iran in noncompliance because of its past covert activities.

"We think it's self-evident, for example, that in the face of such a finding, no government should permit new nuclear transfers to Iran and all ongoing nuclear projects should be frozen," Rademaker said.

He did not mention Russia by name, but Moscow has an $800 million contract to build a nuclear reactor in the city of Bushehr. That program has raised U.S. concerns that the reactor could help Tehran develop nuclear weapons.

However, U.S. officials had accepted for now Russian assurances that no enrichment or reprocessing will take place, and that any spent fuel rods will be returned to Russia.

Russia has also trained about 700 Iranian nuclear engineers, and several dozen Iranian experts are in training at a nuclear power plant in southwestern Russia.

Asked later if he would urge Russia directly to end its cooperation with Iran, Rademaker said "I think the statement I gave today speaks for itself."

Iran insists its nuclear program is for energy purposes, while the United States suspects Iran is trying to build atomic bombs.

Last week's IAEA board resolution put off a decision on whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. The board hopes that will give Tehran time to meet its demands, which included a call on Iran to end uranium conversion - a precursor of enrichment — and commit to freezing all enrichment plans.

Russia abstained at the IAEA board's vote and has said it opposes imposing sanctions on Iran. Earlier Monday, it urged Iran not to suspend cooperation on inspections by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.

'We hope that all governments will take note of the board's finding of non-compliance [with nuclear proliferation safeguards by Iran] and adjust their national policies accordingly,' Stephen Rademaker, acting US assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation, seen here in 2004, told a disarmament committee of the UN General Assembly(AFP/File/Farooq Naeem)

Venezuela praised bilateral relations with Iran and pledged Wednesday support for Tehran’s right to develop nuclear energy be it within the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries or in other international forums.

Venezuelan Ambassador Anibal Gallegos Ramirez speaking in Tehran said Iran’s aspirations to develop nuclear energy, and respect for the rights and sovereignty of peoples are in line with those of Venezuela. Caracas rejects the idea of “certain countries” who wish to retain a “monopoly” over the technology and use of nuclear energy.
"We believe Iran, the same as Brazil and Argentina have a right to research and find new energy sources that can help substitute non-renewable resources as those derived from petroleum and gas" underlined Ambassador Gallegos who recalled that President Hugo Chavez recently announced Venezuela will follow the same path for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, which he said was "an undeniable right" of nations.

Developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes will necessarily drive Venezuela to a closer collaboration with Iran, pointed out the Ambassador, since the “Islamic revolution of Iran and our Bolivarian revolution are based on similar principles”.

However several European countries and United States are not totally convinced of Iran’s true intentions and fear Iran could be on the track to build atomic weapons, which has led to serious diplomatic frictions with Tehran.

Describing Venezuela as "a strategic ally of Iran", Gallegos said it was the only country to vote against a resolution from the governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency which opens the way to a possible referral of the Iranian nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council that can impose sanctions on Tehran. Caracas's support of Iran "fundamentally reflects the principles and ideals that inspire the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela, which is inspired by values common to the Iranian Islamic Revolution", insisted Ambassador Gallegos.

The two countries share a commitment to "self-determination of peoples, to sovereignty and the technological independence of nations". Finally Ambassador Gallegos said Iran and Venezuela "are founding members of OPEC, and they have much in common".

July 18, 2008
DEA Reports show that Mexican Cartel "Thugs" are receiving training from Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
NAFBPO: El Universal (Mexico City) 7/17/08 - This paper accessed "restricted circulation" reports of the DEA which show that the Sinaloa and Gulf narcotraffic cartels have contacted extremist groups in Iran to send "elite" thugs, mainly ex-military, to that country to receive training in weapons and explosives and that these contacts go back to 2005. Reportedly, they travel to Iran via flights from Venezuela. In Iran, the Revolutionary Guard furnishes advanced training in command, control, rockets, automatic weapons, sniper rifles and explosives.

The Juarez cartel reportedly gets its training from Colombia’s FARC. Further, that some terrorist group members have married Mexican women and have changed their Arabic names to Hispanic ones which has allowed them to enter the United States.
- In Sinaloa, two car bombs were turned over to the “PGR” (Mex. Dep’t. of Justice) by the army. One had three gas cylinders of ten kilos each; the other had two gallons of gasoline.

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Today, Iran suffers a major loss of intellectuals, scientists, medical doctors, and academic elites. According to the International Monetary fund (IMF), which surveyed 91 countries, Iran has the highest rate of brain drain in the world: every year, 150,000 educated Iranians leave their home country to pursue better opportunities abroad. Iranian experts put the economic loss of brain drain at some $50 billion a year or higher, making the exodus of an inventor or scientist comparable in local terms to the eradication of 10 oil wells.

Today, Iran suffers a major loss of intellectuals, scientists, medical doctors, and academic elites. According to the International Monetary fund (IMF), which surveyed 91 countries, Iran has the highest rate of brain drain in the world: every year, 150,000 educated Iranians leave their home country to pursue better opportunities abroad. Iranian experts put the economic loss of brain drain at some $50 billion a year or higher, making the exodus of an inventor or scientist comparable in local terms to the eradication of 10 oil wells.

Many thanks for reminding us with excellent point regarding highest rate of brain drain in the world.